Friday, April 20, 2012

Elevators, Escalators, and Draw Bridges

Traveling away from home is tricky. Regardless of what brilliance/stupidity you achieve while away, your life at home is on pause. You still have to pick up where you left off when you return.

It's a bad photo, but his pants were carefully painted and stenciled. It worked. With the yellow mocs and the vintage woven case (binoculars?) it was his own style, and I liked it.

The little brush-bristles along the bottom of the escalator serves as a shoe polisher. Shine the toes as you ride to the top. Of course, people will think you're a weirdo, but at least you will be wearing proper shoes.

In downtown Miami, this is the bridge-house at the draw bridge. On Thursday, a pedestrian apparently couldn't wait to get to his finance desk and jumped out of his taxi as the gates came down and he sprinted across the bridge just before it lifted. I was hoping for a more dramatic leap, but it was only about a foot or two. Notice the unnecessary-but-architecturally-excellent details, including the line of six little top windows under the roofline.

---

Wow. Magic City Casino must have looked through a thrift shop's dust-covered cassette selection to come up with this play-bill.

By my last week, I was finally relaxed enough to slowly swim the entirety of the long pool on one breath underwater, which took about a week to work up to. I suspect it was partly conditioning, but mostly mental reprogramming; the type that eases the shoulders and gut when you finally allow it to, only realizing the tension had been present by its noticeable absence.

A trio of feral green parrots frequented our roomy balcony, but their charm wore off by the third day with their ear-piercing screeches. It has stayed in the mid-80's the entire time, and the low humidity has allowed evenings in light cotton, linen, and seersucker jackets comfortably. A Saturday flight home to familiar Boston territory and a bundle or two of cigars to share with anyone in who happens to spot the drinks flag this Sunday. Perhaps the calendar will hurry along and we can trot out the summer materials and colors. I'm ready for the change.